I am sure you would all like to know about the Calhoun County Drugstore, Fred and Martha Johnson Prop., and the annual going out of business sale.

It all began when the DEA took a close look at the books for the Calhoun County Drug Store and realized that, for some reason, they were filling prescriptions for hundreds of pain pills more than they had. To be honest it was not their fault but the fault of old Doc Perkins, who also was the owner of the Bank before it went bust and turned into a restaurant. All poor Fred had done was fill the prescriptions but he did feel he was lucky when they told him he could still fill prescriptions for birth control pills, not that there is a big demand for them in Calhoun County unless it's from the Baptist side of town.

I don't know if I mentioned it before but there are two churches in Calhoun County that sit right across from each other, a Catholic church and a Baptist church. They hold their services at the same time and quite often the Catholics will mingle with the Baptists and they will go down to the Bank after services to have dinner and tell each other why the other is going to Hell.

It was right after Fred and Martha got the notice that they could only sell birth control pills that they came up with their "going out of business sale". To them they were going out of business. Fred and Martha had spent the whole day marking things down and making sure all of the merchandise was displayed properly. It was about seven PM and they were just getting ready to close the drug store when the man came in, pulled a gun and demanded all of the drugs in the place. Needless to say the man was not happy when he was presented with stacks of different kinds of birth control pills.

As he was ranting and raging poor Martha yelled out that her worst nightmare was going to come true, this man was gong to tie her up and take advantage of her. He was going to use her body until his sweaty body was completely satisfied and leave her a ruined woman. Being a true lady of the south, she passed out.

The robber finally left after Fred convinced him the only drugs he was going to get were birth control pills but did offer the man a discount on a case of aspirin. As soon as the man left, Fred rearranged Marge and called the Calhoun County Sheriff, Joe Morgan.

When Joe came screeching up to the door of the Calhoun County Drugstore he was loaded for bear. Joe came busting for the door and mistook a coke sign on top of a display for the crook and let off two rounds into it. The bullet from Joe's weapon went through the Mighty Might perfume display (Your Favorite Perfume for a Dollar a Pint) then proceeded to hit a Zippo Shaving Cream display before winding up in the middle of the O in the coke sign.

As this was taking place Martha came to and promptly thought the world was coming to an end and fainted again. After Fred managed to get Joe's attention and point out to him the crook had already left and gave him a description of him Martha came to once more and was placed upon one of the stool in the fountain area of the store.

"I have been taken advantage of and am now a used woman!" Marge yelled out. "I just knew if we were ever robbed this would happen!" Joe was in a real pickle now, should he tell Marge the truth or let her live out her worst fear so she would be over with it. Joe chose to be a loving husband; he also knew that no matter what he said Marge was going to stick to her story about being taken advantage of.

I would like to report that Joe later found the robber but the truth of the matter was that Joe had to go home and take a really long shower to get rid of the smell of the Mighty Might perfume and get the Zippo shaving cream off him. In fact as Joe left the Drug store he looked like a fuzzy snowman and smelled like a … well we won't go into that because of the delicate nature of some of the women reading this.

©4/25/04 Tina Rice